Advanced Financial Advisory and Cash Flow Strategy

Forecasting and financial planning for accounting professionals moving into a strategic advisory role.

Track

Accounting and Finance

Format

In person, 889 Harbourside Drive

Length

Six modules

Taught by

Aragon's accounting firm

About the course

For most accounting professionals, the pull toward advisory work is clear and the path into it is not. The skills that make someone excellent at compliance are not the same ones that let them sit across from a founder and say what the numbers mean for the next twelve months. That gap is what this program closes.

You will learn to build a driver-based financial model where the assumptions are visible and defensible, maintain a rolling cash flow forecast, and run the scenarios that show a business what happens if the year goes differently than planned. You will also work on the part that is harder to teach: structuring the advisory conversation itself, deciding what belongs in a board pack, and knowing which number a founder actually needs to see.

Taught by our accounting firm, which does this work across the Aragon portfolio, so the case studies come from real businesses making real decisions. It suits accountants moving into advisory roles as well as finance leads and founders who own the model themselves.

What Participants Will Learn

  • Cash flow forecasting and scenario planning
  • Driver-based financial modelling
  • The metrics that drive business decisions
  • Presenting advice to a founder or a board

Course Outline

Module 1: The Shift to Advisory

  • What changes when the work becomes forward-looking
  • Scoping and pricing advisory work

 

Module 2: Cash Flow Forecasting

  • The thirteen week forecast and how to keep it current
  • Scenario and sensitivity planning

 

Module 3: Financial Modelling

  • Building a driver-based model
  • Making assumptions visible and defensible

 

Module 4: Metrics and Unit Economics

  • Profitability, margin and working capital
  • Unit economics for service and for software businesses

 

Module 5: Business Decision Support

  • Pricing, cost and hiring decisions modelled before they are made
  • Runway and raise timing

 

Module 6: Advising in Practice

  • Structuring the conversation and the board pack
  • Case studies from real businesses

Who it is for

Accountants moving into advisory roles, and the finance leads and founders who own the model themselves.

Founders in the Aragon portfolio take these courses as part of the work we already do with them. Courses are also open to founders and professionals outside the portfolio.

Bring your own model. The sessions work through real numbers, and the more of yours you bring, the more useful the six modules are.